CM HAF Stacker 935 Mod-Tower Case Review: Part 1

Introduction and Features

Introduction

Today we are going from one extreme to another. Two months ago we took an in-depth look at Cooler Master’s Elite 110 enclosure, which is a compact small form-factor case designed to house a mini-ITX system. Now we are going to the opposite end of the spectrum and will be taking a detailed look at the largest case Cooler Master (or most anyone else for that matter) has released to date, the HAF Stacker 935 Modular-Tower Case. In addition, the good folks at Cooler Master sent along a HAF Stacker 915F to show off how easy it is to expand a HAF Stacker system by adding one or more HAF Stacker case modules.

(Courtesy of Cooler Master)

Because this case is so large (we will actually be reviewing three different cases together: HAF 915F, 925 mid, and 915R) we are going to split the review into two parts. In Part 1 we are taking a detailed look at the three chassis (features, specifications, etc.) and the in Part 2 we will start installing parts and build a full-size ATX system along with a mini-ITX system and also look at various cooling solutions.

CM HAF Stacker 935 (HAF 925/HAF 915R) (3) HAF 915s Stacked

The Cooler Master HAF Stacker 935 case consists of two pieces: a HAF 925 Mid-Tower enclosure and a HAF 915R mini-ITX case stacked together. The HAF 935 comes with the 915 mini-ITX chassis mounted on top of the HAF 925 Mid-Tower case but you can swap them around if you like because all of the HAF Stacker Series cases are interchangeable. This offers great flexibility for building multi-PCs in one chassis and provides a large amount of room for mounting all sorts of components like high-end water cooling systems, huge HDD arrays, etc. The HAF Stacker series can provide an excellent base system for some extreme case modding if desired.

I like the stack idea! Would be nice if the cost would be less and more connection options would be available.

Now, hence the stacked model (HAF Stacker 915F) is for mini-ITX, it won't work for me. What happened if you want an SLI configurations? Board won't fit even if you use PCIe Riser cables. (far as I know, the smallest SLI x2 is a Micro-ATX)

It was also odd to see the motherboard at the bottom. I understand the design choices for the PSU and Fan location. But wouldn't this allow more dust to settle on the mobo? That design also removes access to cool air from the bottom to enter.

The small case/system up top running the KVM and hosting whatever OS/s is/are needed for general use, and the lower big rig system running a streamlined gaming OS, and the gaming CPUs/GPUs, the gaming segment OS running headless server style on its own hardware, but under the control of the main OS, running on the top system's VM, with the lower system free of any bloatware or unnecessary for gaming services, i.e. Steam OS on the gaming system, or other OS if the user does not mind the un-removable bloat. These modular cases could make for a nice little home basic computing/gaming cluster, short of going to a completely rack based configuration.